September 23, 2013

Everything you thought you knew about environments and communities is wrong. But don't worry, you can blame your poor memory, and lack of imagination and invention.

Memory, imagination and invention are three pre-conditions for
sustaining communities and environments. The Centre for Memory,
Imagination and Invention (CMII) comprises a unique interdisciplinary
group that addresses these interrelated concerns from both theoretical
and applied perspectives.

Building on the expertise represented in its members, CMII
responds to a growing recognition that scenarios for future
sustainability based exclusively on instrumentalist, rational paradigms
fail to produce community engagement. CMII's mission is to demonstrate
and enhance the usefulness and the efficacy of humanities, creative arts
and social sciences research to cause positive social change, and to
improve social and cultural fabric.
Deploying innovative methods drawn from the disciplines of
cultural heritage studies, museology, architecture, literary studies,
creative arts and design, CMII is forging ground-breaking projects
focusing on themes including spatiality, cross-cultural engagement,
innovative technologies, and the operation of memory.

September 11, 2013

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing
at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till
the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up.

LNP star candidate Bill Glasson has
labelled Kevin Rudd churlish, sanctimonious, disrespectful and a
smart-arse after the deposed prime minister used his concession speech
to brag about victory in his own seat. Giving his speech on Saturday night, Mr Rudd said: "It would be
un-prime ministerial of me to say, 'Bill Glasson, eat your heart out,'
so I won't."

Just after Tony Abbott's
frustratingly fruitless victory in the 2010 election campaign, Liberal
pollster and strategist Mark Textor presented party director Brian
Loughnane with a paper entitled "A campaign for grown-ups by grown-ups". Being grown-up became the central theme of a three-year strategy in
which four principals with their own distinct roles and talents worked
towards Saturday night's "overnight success" of the election of the
"unpopular" and "unelectable" Liberal leader as prime minister.

September 7, 2013

Remember the dirge-like victory speech that Kevin Rudd gave when the ALP won the federal election back in 2007? The droning that seemed like it would never end? I can't have been the only person who felt an urge to hand the man a Prozac.

Fast forward to a slamming defeat in 2013 - although yes, he did save the furniture - Rudd's concession speech was cheery, buoyant, bouncy, verbose and virtually a victory speech - and no, he didn't shut the fuck up.

September 2, 2013

Labor
campaign spokeswoman Penny Wong tends to lull her audience into a
hypnotic state. But this line hit us like a slap in the face. "I think a
lot of people are tired of this costings debate, I'd quite like to be
able to talk about something else," she told Seven News on Friday. Say
what?

(The Oz)

And with that, Wong joined the Hockey camp of inventing the lie that voters are bored by economics.

As far as I know, there's no 'costing' in the world that can establish that a policy is sound and appropriate, will be effective, will have no unintended outcomes, and will come in at the cost first claimed.

Nor is there any 'costing' that can establish that the opportunity cost of one policy over another is defensible - at least not in the land down under, since both of our major parties ignore such inconveniences.

These are the reasons why the empty 'debate' about costings should stop. It's a nonsense game, and the ALP and the Liberals are treating us like fools.

With only four days until votes are cast, we haven't heard a single concrete or coherent economic thought from Rudd or from Abbott.